Friday, March 11, 2011

Maid updates!

I introduced my maid Radha two days ago, in my blog. So as I had given an insight of how maids are, she is proving me bang on right! Two days and almost she is ruling my home. As I mentioned before, on day 1 she said that I should soak clothes on alternate days, so she won’t wash them each day but once in two days. I was fine with that. Here in south India, ladies have a practice of offering a cup of coffee or tea or a plate of snack/breakfast/leftover to maids. I am not very crazy about this idea. Basically I do not feel right about giving any leftover food and making tea/coffee or breakfast is an added task for me as each day my kitchen situation is different. Mostly no breakfast, or generally cereal! Either ways, in Pune city we did not have any such practice.

But on day 1, I was nice enough to ask her if she wanted some coffee. She promptly replied that she doesn’t take coffee, she prefers TEA! Ok ma’am! I said I do have Tea & I can prepare some. So I did but she forgot to drink it & I felt awful, wondering if she thought I forgot to make it.

Day 2, when she came in, it was on my mind that I forgot to give her the tea I prepared & that I should mention it so she has no wrong impression of me. But I thought I was giving too much of thought to the incident, so I let it be. But while she was washing the clothes, she openly asked me, “You said you would make me Tea yesterday. Did you forget?” Yikes! I told her what happened and asked her promptly again if I should make some now. I made her a big cup of tea. Based on different tastes I made a subtle tea, to which she had an instant review that I need to make it stronger & add more sugar too!

Day 3 today – When she sat drinking her tea, she said it was really tasty, and that she did not like my tea yesterday! L She slowly slipped the topic of wiping the floor. She said “Your floor is so clean, why do you need it to be wiped every day?” I paused for a second and said, “We’ll see, may be you can see if it is not too dirty you could skip wiping it some days”. She smiled at me happily!

Before leaving, she sat at the door to make herself a paan (Betel leaf). I was standing by the door waiting for her to leave. While making her paan, she said “Dear, could you give me 5 rupees. I am out of Betel leaves”. Of course I gave her the money. But I am still fighting the thought, does the thought of having to give 5 rupees make me cheap or am I right that she is taking my advantage?

2 comments:

So I am not cheap! I was right. I know she is taking advantage of me, but she needs to be told that I understand it. It will be a good experience for me to learn to tackle people. So let the show go on...& we'll learn some more :)Stay tuned!